Page 97 of Touch of Class

“And even if Gillian can’t make the scary sledding portion of the day for whatever reason, she must at least come over for the movie.”

“Yeah,” Izzy agreed. “You don’t have clients at night, and Papa is a great cook. It’ll be fun and snuggly.”

Gillian shifted from one side to the other, her questioning gaze landing on Daphne as if trying to read her, but how could Daphne send her some kind of silent cue when she couldn’t even formulate a full thought in her own head? Gillian? In her home? With her family? The prospects raised way too many emotions to be processed in a moment, much less communicated delicately with an audience.

“Honestly.” Hugh piled on the accent as if to add gravity. “I’ve been longing to get to know you better. You’ve done so much for my two favorite girls, albeit in wildly different ways. I simply must insist.”

Gillian stared at Daphne for a second longer before giving a little one-shoulder shrug. Then turning to Hugh, she said, “I’d love to.”

“Yes!” Izzy did a happy dance and Hugh grinned. Gillian, for her part, seemed pleasantly mystified, either at her easy acceptance or the reactions it inspired. Apparently, once again, Daphne was the only one left unsure about her own place, or her own emotions.

Twenty

Gillian stared up at the toboggan chute. It wasn’t exactly what she’d expected, though she wasn’t sure she’d had any specific image in mind. Maybe if pressed she would’ve predicted something quaint, wooden, or lower to the ground. This contraption was almost industrial. All metal, a square green hut atop a clanking staircase several stories above the ground. A line of riders holding long wooden sleds disappeared inside, then a minute later shot down a track that looked like some rickety leftover from an old factory. And it wasn’t short, either. The riders went down fast enough that they kept going long after the track disappeared into the snow-covered hillside. Pure sledding at that point, they raced the length of multiple football fields, their shrieks fading in the distance before they toppled off into frozen drifts.

“It’s rather imposing,” she finally said, turning to find the same wide-eye disbelief on Brooke’s face.

“That cannot be safe,” Brooke said as another sled burst forth, bearing a slew of screaming teenagers past them in a blur.

“Do you think it’s too late to call Robin and Sawyer back from the line for sleds? Or should we tell Tegan not to park the car and instead slow down enough for us to jump in and leave the others behind?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Brooke said flatly. “They can come back with all the sleds they want, but I’m not getting on that thing.”

“Obviously.”

“It’s certifiable,” Brooke mumbled as if she hadn’t already made her point.

Gillian nodded. “What are we doing here?”

Brooke finally pulled her eyes away from the metal monstrosity to stare at her. “What do you mean ‘we’? I’m here because you’re here. You’re supposed to be the only safe person in this friend group for me to follow. You said ‘snow-day fun’ and I hopped in the car picturing ice wine or hot cocoa covered in toasted marshmallow fluff. The more pressing question is what are you doing here?”

For the life of her, Gillian couldn’t remember. Nothing about this outing seemed like a decision she would’ve made. Though admittedly, she’d made several rather uncharacteristic decisions lately. In fact, this hardly ranked among them. Still, she wasn’t ready to explain that to Brooke yet, so she turned and watched as another toboggan flew from the chute. However, before it even reached the bottom of the ramp, she heard someone call her name with a peel of unfettered joy.

The sound was so uncommonly associated with her, she whirled around to see Izzy, smile bright, dark curls flowing from under a purple stocking cap as the girl waved frantically from the parking lot. Suddenly, she remembered exactly how she got here.

“Izzy,” she said. “Izzy asked me to come today.”

Brooke eyed her skeptically. “Daphne’s daughter asked you to visit a snowy death trap, and you agreed?”

She shrugged. “Actually, she asked me what the best thing to do in Buffalo on a snow day was, and somehow I’d rather do this than let her down by admitting I tend to spend my snow days working.”

Brooke’s whole demeanor softened. “I suppose if one were going to give any reason to climb onto that implement of destruction, you found one of the better ones, though I could think of one more that might top it.”

“What’s that?”

Brooke looked over her shoulder. “Izzy’s mom.”

Gillian followed her gaze to Daphne weaving through the crowd behind her daughter. She wore brown snow pants and a cream-colored puffy jacket offsetting her naturally olive complexion. Like her daughter, she’d tucked her own curls under a cap, but on her, the look wasn’t cute so much as alluring. She was perfect in so many ways Gillian had never let herself admire before, and even under multiple layers of winter clothing, she could trace every curve of her with her eyes the way she had with her hands only the night before last.

After everything the two of them had gone through, it seemed silly to think they could still see each other in new ways, but snow-day Daphne was every bit as compelling as middle-of-the-night Daphne, and Gillian ached to know all the versions of her she’d previously kept herself closed off from.

Daphne spotted her and seemed to do the same kind of visual inventory before full lips spread into a smile, making whatever was about to happen 100 percent worth it. Gillian’s heart rate kicked up a notch in ways that had nothing to do with the people screaming behind her.

“Hi,” Daphne said as she approached. “I have to admit, I expected you to chicken out.”

Gillian bristled despite having contemplated exactly that only minutes earlier. “Why? Have our last few encounters suggested I’m one to shrink from a challenge?”

Daphne bit her lower lip and shook her head. “I’m not sure I like the implication that interactions with me carry the same level of challenge as all of this, but no, you haven’t shrunk from much lately.”